“Using Vesta has allowed us to streamline our product information process, saving hours of work each week. Our customers can receive new and updated products faster, and our sales team now has the information they need for quoting at their fingertips when they need it. Tools like this allow us to work faster and smarter as we scale our business.”
- Linda Bredenkamp, Apex Tool Group
Why
Apex Tools is one of the largest manufacturers of professional hand and power tools in the world.
Their Australian office found they were spending a lot of time maintaining and sharing their product information with both customers and their sales team. This was all done manually, using spreadsheets and dropbox.
Additionally, with no clear central repository for all of the product information, data was spread across different locations and folders, making it harder to keep track of the latest information and taking more time to locate and update products.
How
Apex Tools were invited to use Vesta to supply one of their customers with product information. They quickly saw there was the opportunity for more value from the Vesta system to help with their own product information management.
“We were very excited about a portal to maintain and update our data to have the latest updates for our retailers and reps. The possibility of sharing this software platform with our retailers was also very exciting” - Linda Bredenkamp, Apex Tool Group
Apex Tools uploaded their products to Vesta, providing a central source of truth for their product information. An integration was set up from Apex Tools ERP system (SAP) and Vesta to sync information such as product status (discontinued or live), dimensions, codes, and other attributes.
Apex Tools were able to grant access to the portal to their retailers, giving them 24/7 access to retrieve the latest, most accurate product information, removing the manual work of Apex Tools distributing this regularly. To further streamline their processes, Apex Tools used Vesta’s smart catalog system to easily share their data with more of their retailers when there were updates.
Vesta’s portal also allowed Apex Tools to give their sales reps access to accurate product data. This meant that reps could have product images and details on hand to effectively export quotes and other information to customers, leading to a quicker quoting process with better information for the customer.
The Results
The Vesta portal has saved large amounts of time and manual effort previously used in maintaining and sharing product data with both customers and their internal sales team. A central repository to store and manage their product data has also made day to day management easier with less chance of errors.
Apex Tool Group has had positive feedback from both retail customers who find it an easy way to retrieve and find the product information they need and also from their sales reps who can now react quicker to customer opportunities.
